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All
Saints, Wood Norton

Wood
Norton is one of those delightfully quiet
villages to the north of the Norwich to Fakenham
road. There is a beautiful old brick barn at the
curve in the road beside the graveyard, and the
church is a pretty little thing. The unfinished
medieval tower was completed in red brick in the
late 17th century, and there is a small but
stately 15th century south porch. The nave is
tall, but without clerestories or aisles, and the
overall effect is that the building is hunching
its shoulders.

Big Perpendicular windows,
probably contemporary with the porch, mean that
the interior is very light. The font is
intriguing; it bulges like a ripe cheese, and I
assume that it is also late 17th century,
probably a replacement for one damaged during the
Commonwealth. The cover may well be contemporary,
and designed for it. Other than these, the
interior is that of a pleasantly restored English
village church, well kept and obviously loved.

An early
20th century resident of Wood Norton was William Forbes
Norris, who is remembered by a brass inscription. He was
attached to the 54th Divisional Cyclist Company, and was
killed in the hell of Suvla Bay, along with so many other
Norfolkers, in August 1915. He was 21 years old. The
insanity of taking bicycles to Suvla, where the cliffs
rise hundreds of feet above the sea, tells you a little
of what you need to know about those who oversaw the
slaughter of the First World War.

Little
survives of the medieval life of All Saints, but probably
the most memoriable feature here is the corbel head of a
pig, reminiscent of the famous ones not far off at
Sharrington. It supports the blocked arch to a lost
chapel on the south side of the chancel, and if the
piscina is anything to go by it probably dates from about
1300. I wonder if it was carved from the life?